There is much that is interesting in [Who Calls From Afar?], as, for instance, the description of the Earth Station with its complex instruments for telecommunication via "Fred" the satellite. There is humour and perhaps a message for young people too, for, as the Professor says, too many of our actions and thoughts are determined by "remote control", as are those of the cosmonauts, and it is essential that the pattern should be broken at times.

The author has a deep concern for young people and understands them, as is evident in this book as in her others, but the story is more superficial and not as absorbing as usual and the central characters are not as real as the four young people in Beat of the City, for instance, or Binny in A Sapphire for September.